Loki’s shape-shifting role in the MCU became literal in Thor: The Dark World
Film Features The Marvel Moment
Thank Odin for Loki. And thank him, too, for Tom Hiddleston, the British actor who turned the fourth most important role in the least-anticipated Marvel film into one of the series’ most fascinating, malleable characters. Yes, Loki definitely died in the grip of Thanos’ big, purple hand, but he’s returning for his own prequel on Disney+, one that will intersect the trickster with key events in human history. Marvel’s even done a bit of retconning in advance of the series, explaining away the character’s more villainous tendencies—like, say, trying to enslave the human race in The Avengers—by explaining that he was influenced by an evil Scepter that was “fueling his hatred over his brother Thor and the inhabitants of Earth.”
That’s lame. It’s lame because it’s unnecessary. Yes, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a binary one where the good guys are good and the bad guys bad. But Loki resonates because, against all precedent, he managed to be both. For all his shifting allegiances—he winks at the audience in Ragnarok, saying they vary from “moment to moment”—the character is remarkably consistent in terms of his wants and weaknesses. He wants power, yes, but that desire stems from his own familial insecurities, which, time and again, serve to fuel both his villainous and redemptive moments. He wants to be selfish, to rule from the throne his father denies him, but his love for Thor and Asgard can’t help but draw him back to their side. So while Earth and civilization might be nothing more than land to conquer to Loki, his family remains a leash around his heart.
Thor: The Dark World isn’t anyone’s favorite Marvel movie, but it finds a clever way to reintegrate Loki into the MCU after he played the big bad in The Avengers. Confined to a cell, his powers neutralized, he watches on helplessly as Malekith and the Dark Elves terrorize his homeland. After realizing his adopted mother, Frigga (Rene Russo), has been killed, he channels his grief into a mental bomb, one that lays waste to his cell’s furnishings in a single swoop. Later, he uses his powers to mask his physical collapse, projecting a tidy, refined version of himself into the world. That’s some relatable shit right there.
Still, The Dark World remains a by-the-numbers affair, driven down by a forgettable villain—Dark Elf Malekith is even lamer than the first Thor’s frosty Laufey—and a boilerplate love affair that again wastes Natalie Portman. There’s signs of what was to come with the kaleidoscopic Ragnarok, though. Just look at the shapeshifting scene in which Thor frees Loki from his cell in an effort to safely travel to Svartalfheim. With their feud in the past, the brothers are free to bounce off of each other in fresh ways, with Chris Hemsworth’s penchant for straight-faced comedy amplifying Loki’s puckish smarm. Nobody sitting through Marvel’s first phase would’ve expected these two to one day anchor an honest-to-goodness action-comedy, but to watch their easy rapport here is to understand why What We Do In The Shadows director Taika Waititi came to mind as they were plotting a third outing.
The above scene also serves as its own kind of metaphor—Loki, after all, shifts shapes in more ways than one, his character being one of the few non-Avengers to evolve, in performance and function, with the MCU. He’s been a villain and a hero, a comic and a martyr, and a genuine wild card in a series built on binaries. What’s great, though, is how both Hiddleston and the MCU have managed to keep Loki’s mischievousness intact until the very end. He never really became a good guy and, canon be damned, no scepter is going to change that.
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Hiddleston is so good in this movie he almost redeems it from being the worst Marvel film – I say almost. the scene when you see what the cell really looks like and his argument with Odin at the start are possibly his best work in the role
I still think Iron Man 2 is worse. This one is boring and forgettable, but never struck me as actively bad.
I’m kind of with you there. I actively disliked both Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3 more than I did Thor: Dark World
(I’m with you on Iron Man 3) but I never “disliked” Dark World at all, I just never thought it was particularly great or memorable. I saw it again recently and its certainly watchable. Hell, I rewatch BvS when its on TV and I do not like that movie.
“Dark World” at least moved the needle on everyone’s character development just a little bit. “Iron Man 2″, everyone was the same asshole at the end of the movie that they were in the beginning. Hell, Tony had more of an arc in the first “Avengers” movie, and that was an ensemble film.
See, I’m on the opposite end there, because while IM3 is messy and tonedeaf I at least finds bits of engaging or memorable. The Dark World is such a faceless, grey slog of absolute mediocrity and to me that’s far worse.
Oh I like Iron Man 3. 2 was the terrible one.
shit. I meant to type IM2 in response to your original comment, that’s what I was referring to. this is why AV Clubbing at 5am is bad. but hey, at least we agree on IM3 being good!
Meanwhile, IM2 just sucks…while IM3 is awesome, charming and fucking fearless
Yeah, IM2 is aggressively, obnoxiously, in-your-face bad.
Loki was the fourth most important character in the first Thor? He drives a huge portion of the narrative; it is basically as much his origin story as it is Thor’s. I’d say he pretty much ties with his brother as that movie’s most important characters.
Honestly I’d prefer that Loki was acting in his own free will during Avengers and is going to try to find redemption. Sort of like in Loki: Agent of Asgard where he worked out a deal with the All-Mother that if he did her dirty work, she’d alter his history so he isn’t a God of Lies anymore.
Good call. As bad (or, at least, as bland) as this movie is, it positively lights up any time Hems and Hiddles are on screen together.Funnily enough, after the Avengers edition of “The Marvel Moment” the gf and I decided to list our predictions of what the other selections would be from the rest of the films… and now we’re two for two (although some of them we couldn’t decide at all, sadly)!
I need to watch this one again. I haven’t seen it since it first released and honestly I don’t remember any of it except the end
It’s a surprisingly great 3rd act, though – they got a lot of mileage out of the whole “shifting dimensional portals” thing.
They definitely took that idea and used it to drive the action in a way that was fun.
Frigga’s Last Stand was pretty good, too. Other than those two things, yeah, I don’t remember much at all.
I remember that it had the most Stellan Skarsgård nudity since Breaking the Waves.
Oh, the Loki series is a prequel? That could be interesting, but I was hoping they would do a version of Kieron Gillen’s Journey Into Mystery. He wouldn’t be a kid, but I think the core of it, a heroic Loki saving the world more or less via Ponzi schemes with seriously bad dudes, still works.
I was hoping it would be a sequel where we see that the trickster God pulled off his greatest trick by faking his death at Thanos’ hand. Now he’s back/reborn on Earth or wherever, staying out of the main MCU’s way, and causing mischief from episode to episode as he tries to continue redeeming himself. But they don’t pay me to come up with these ideas, so a prequel it is, I guess.
In the same vein, I kinda want one more Thor to reset Asgard and ease into a new actor playing Thor. Thor could learn the Asgardians are being reincarnated and go seeking them out to reestablish New Asgard, only to die and be reborn himself at the end. Out of ALL of the Marvel characters, he’s the easiest to restart as their mythology has a built-in “Doctor Who” ability to recast.
Perhaps all the upcoming projects featuring characters killed in Infinity War are prequels. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
a heroic Loki saving the world more or less via Ponzi schemes with seriously bad dudesThis is the best description for that Journey into Mystery run and I love it.
They confirmed Hiddleston’s involvement a lot later than they did for Anthony Mackie and all the other movie actors in the other shows, so I think the focus will be young Loki with Hiddleston just narrating, but they could’ve gone forward without him.
I suspect, based on what’s announced so far, they might be all or mostly leading up to a Young Avengers series. Kid Loki from this, Vision and Scarlet Witch bringing out Wiccan and Speed, Hawkeye introducing Kate Bishop, etc. And we’ve already got Cassie Lang. I’m hyped for this thing I’ve imagined.
I <3 Kieron
I was rewatching this one the other day, and it’s really not that bad. It’s “MCU-bad”, which means it’s still pretty good. (There’s only one “bad” movie in the MCU, really, and this isn’t it.) I wish this wasn’t Natalie Portman’s last turn as Jane Foster (I would have liked to see her in the last Thor movie pick up the pieces of Mj… mjone… mjonie… Mew-Mew). but it’s really not terrible. i like how it leaned more in to the cosmic side of things, I like the Thor/Loki interactions (forgetting for a moment that he’s a mass murderer)… I can point to individual moments in this that are actually really good, including that end portal fight.
That’s because it’s the most forgettable of the Marvel movies.
What’s the bad one? Iron Man 2 or Age of Ultron?
For me it’s Iron Man 2, even with the great Monaco sequence the film drags. The daddy issues weren’t interesting and I kinda hated the joke weapons failure Hammer gave the War Machine suit.I liked Sam Rockwell’s goofy portrayal of Hammer, but I didn’t like the implication he was an idiot who wasn’t actually good at weapons manufacturing.The other film usually cited as bad MCU is generally considered to be The Incredible Hulk. That films problem in my eyes is that you can sort of see it’s been chopped by Marvel and the battle scene in Harlem doesn’t grab me.
Now that I think about it, you’re right. How is he Stark’s main competition but be shitty at making weapons?
It’s not that he’s bad at making weapons, it’s that he’s no Tony Stark. He wants to be as brilliant as Stark, so he gets in way over his head and that’s his downfall. It’s like the embarrassing capering he does at the Hammer Drone launch… He wants to be as cool as Tony, but trying to be puts him in over his head and he looks like an idiot.Hammer’s whole thing is being overshadowed by Stark. He could just do his own thing and be fine, but he obsesses over what Stark is doing instead.
Hulk.
Hulk
The only truly bad movie in the MCU is definitely Iron Man 2. It has NO thematic thru-line, it drags constantly, it features several scenes that seem self-indulgently improvised in a way that does the actors no favors (it was filmed during the writer’s strike) and it has a very bro-ey libertarian tone that is completely off-putting to the likes of Kang. On top of which, it has the MOST boring incoherent final action sequence of any Marvel movie.‘Dark World’, though thoroughly pedestrian, does feature some nice large-scale sci-fi setpieces and actually has a fairly inventive final action sequence with all the dimension-hopping and teleportation. Plus some very good humor beats. It’s not good, but it’s not bad.Age of Ultron is definitely disappointing considering what came before—and a bit of a mess—but it’s also the rare action blockbuster that gets more engaging and emotionally poignant in the final act.The Incredible Hulk is fine. Just, y’know, fine.
And even IM2 is watchable!Fuck Jeff Winger…when the worst thing you can call triennial studio tentpole is “watchable,” those movies are fucking brilliant.
I think this is the second or third time I’ve heard that Iron Man 2 was written or filmed during the writers’ strike. The writers’ strike took place over the winter of 2007-’08, ending around February. Theroux was hired to write IM2 in July of ‘08, and filming didn’t begin until spring ‘09 – both well after the writers’ strike.IM and IM2 both featured large amounts of improvisation (it was actually the first IM that went into production without a completed script), which suited Favreau and RDJ. Maybe for IM2, they let the success of the first run go to their heads and thought they’d be able to improvise their way out of tricky script spots or fix them in post-. I like the film all right, but it’s a pretty shaggy affair – probably the worst in the MCU (including Hulk), but still better than many franchise action films.
I would have preferred to see Darcy picking up the pieces of Mew-Mew, then showing it reassemble itself when Thor reflexively tried to call Mjolnir shortly after arriving at Grandmaster’s place. Maybe have her later just casually hand it back to Thor. Or possibly have her reassemble the pieces into Thunderstrike. I do kinda wonder what happened to the pieces, tho.
Hopefully, one piece of it gets picked up by a worthy frog, and a Frogjolnir wielding Throg becomes MCU canon.
Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the bad MCU movie if it isn’t this one? Incredible Hulk? Ultron?Because Thor was my favorite Phase 1 Marvel movie, and Thor’s my favorite non-X-Man Marvel character in the comics. I’m a Thor fan boy is what I’m saying, so predisposed to liking this. (Plus Hemsworth is the handsomest Chris)And I think this movie is the worst in the MCU. It utterly wastes an excellent actor (Christopher Eccleston) by having him portray the least interesting villain by far. Natalie Portman is phoning in her performance, like she does for every franchise movie she’s ever been in. Kat Dennings is still funny but I don’t remember a single line she had in this one.This movie is a big old nothing outside of Hems & Hiddles. I had to look up on Wikipedia where it was even set, and there’s a bunch of London stuff, which you’d think a Brit might remember…
You know, I typed that quickly this morning not thinking, but my least favorite Marvel movie is a really unpopular opinion, so I’m not gonna say.If I had typed that later, I would have left it out. It’s not like, Infinity War or the first Iron Man or Winter Solider or anything like that. It’s just one that’s high on people’s lists, and I don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum. I just don’t think this movie is a particularly good one.
Fair enough. That won’t stop me from speculating – Black Panther?
it was not Black Panther. Think more sequelly.
Guardians 2?Ant Man & the Wasp?
Not Guardians 2, although I had some questions about the official introduction of David Hasselhoff in to the MCU. Does it mean: 1. He never made Nick Fury: Agent of Shield 2. He DID make Nick Fury: Agent of Shield and it was funded by conspiracy theorists to prove it existed or 3. He made it, and it was funded by the REAL Nick Fury to throw everyone off the Shield track.Not Ant-Man and the Wasp, I consider Ant-Man to be the best MCU movies because both of them have come after huge movies and not only had to address them, but make their own movies in return. Ant-Man was the greatest cinematic universe movie of all time.
I love Guardians 2.
And I thoroughly enjoyed the self-contained story of Ant-Man and the Wasp. I liked that it was lower stakes. The chemistry of the actors is great. It’s just a fun movie.
Winter soldier?
Civil War?
Ragnarok? I know a few people who despise that movie (and they’re all from Italy for some reason). I love it, but I guess the sense of humor is a bit specific.
i loved Ragnarock except one scene: The end where Thor’s home is destroyed and they follow it up with a joke. That should have been more emotional.
Yeah, I don’t like that moment, either.
Since so many are asking: It’s Captain America: Civil War. It never should have been a Captain America movie: it was an Avengers movie. The fact that they turned it into a Captain America story lessened the impact greatly. I get why they did it – they needed a split leading into Infinity War. But this, to me is a prime example of “we set the date for this movie, now let’s get to it.”The airport scene was a direct response to the complaints of destruction in Man of Steel: and it lessened the point of the movie, which until then is how much destruction is the point: why not have them fight in a crowded area and have that be part of the commentary? Some people are one sided, others are rushing to help? I’m not bloodthirsty, but come on… the scene made no sense. Let’s charge each other? Rhodey getting hurt… what did they think was going to happen when they started firing missiles at each other? It was quip after violence, and the one moment where things could have worked: Scarlet Witch yelling at Hawkeye not to pull his punches – lost all momentum. It was an interesting fight. It was a bad scene.Then there’s Spider-Man. Yes, it’s great they got him back, but the Tony/Peter scenes are remarkably out of place, especially when he tells Peter to leave after they take down Ant-Man. They clearly added him in.Then there’s the ending. Tony comes over to the side of Captain America, and they realize they have to save the day. Then, Tony finds out that Bucky killed his parents, and he says… “He killed my mom.” A character that was not mentioned until the last Captain America. No mention of his dad, or the natural conclusion to the Captain America/Howard Stark/Tony Stark issue. Honestly, I really feel that Kevin Fiege should get “Martha” tattooed backwards on his chest to remember that one of the reasons no one brings up how botched this is was because Snyder screwed it up so much earlier, and I’m a Snyder apologist. The entire fight scene at the end boiled down to “We didn’t get the Captain America vs. Iron Man cover.” When he says, “I could do this all day” to Tony in this, he has become the bully, not the scrappy underdog.Then the entire thing ends with Cap taking Bucky to Wakanda and putting him on ice… which is what everyone wanted to do to begin with. The only added bit of fun was that no one was talking about curing him, and that could have been fixed.In addition, there’s the fact that they needed to ramp everything up to the whole “Sokovia Accords” but they did this by blaming… Scarlet Witch. Tony twice endangered people: first in Iron Man 2, then in Age of Ultron, and he’s allowed to keep his toys. Scarlet Witch saved 100 people from dying, accidentally killed 20, but she’s under house arrest? What? Wouldnt’ step one be to seize anything with “Stark” on it?Lastly, I get that logistics aren’t always there, but if the Avengers are fighting, wouldn’t Nick Fury want to stop them? And wouldn’t Coulson say, “hey, they teamed up once because they thought I was dead, now i’m better!” And wouldn’t one of them maybe want a lady who can make Earthquakes?Look, I know it’s an unpopular opinion. I’m a dude on the internet who typically loves most marvel movies, not some kind of authority. I can find reasons to love all of them, including this one. But this one isn’t great to me. The script reads like someone who was given the gist of Civil War comic, was asked to re-write it for the MCU, but make sure they hit these beats. And oh, yeah, Spider-Man is going to show up, and remember everyone hated it when Superman’s fight scene might have caused damage, even though the thesis of this movie is that sometimes superhero fights cause damage and we have to fix it. Please be gentle in the comments. It took a lot to type this out.
Thanks for sharing. I love Civil War, but I do understand where you’re coming from. The airport scene, and Peter’s inclusion is definitely contrived. I think Scarlet Witch getting blamed works because it feels like the type of scapegoating that happens a lot in real life; she isn’t the worst offender, but she’s the one that goes viral. Probably something should have happened after Ultron, but I’m willing to blame Ultron’s general lack of connection to the other movies for that issue, especially since Civil War finally addresses the end of Iron Man 3.
As for the end, it works really well for me, but the information about Tony’s mother is definitely in the grey area between “subtle” and “nonexistent,” so it’s fair to take issue with it. I really liked that moment, because it shows he cares for both his parents, not just his father, but it probably would have worked better if it was paying off something established earlier. The scene also needs you to have noticed, or remember, Steve seeing the information about how Tony’s parents died, and I imagine half the audience got confused about that.
Finally, Cap freezing Bucky is a bit off, especially since Bucky’s unfrozen before his next appearance. Steve’s acknowledging that Tony may have had a point by then, though, as seen in his ending message. Their earlier debates happen before Steve sees Tony watching the video, bringing home the consequences of Bucky’s brainwashing. In the subsequent fight, Steve’s trying to stop Tony from killing Bucky outright, so the overton window’s been moved by then. Admittedly, I might be reading this a bit generously, but it certainly worked for me, logically and emotionally, while watching it.
I can see your point about the end more. That does make sense: Steve realizing Tony was right and working to make amends, but stopping Bucky from being killed.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. made it clear that all of the Avengers thought Coulson was dead, and that they weren’t cleared to know he was alive. They cover that in like the first couple of minutes of the pilot.
You don’t have to confirm or deny, but if the title you’re reluctant to say is ‘Iron Man 3′, just know you’re not alone.
I mean, you’d be wrong but you wouldn’t be alone.
No. It’s not one of my favorites, but it’s MCU-Bad, which means it’s still pretty good. i think it would have been improved had this been Age of Ultron, or at least lead us into it a little bit.
Yeah, I thought Black Panther was shit too.
The most memorable thing about Thor The Dark World for Brits, specifically us Londoners, is the impossible tube journey Thor took from Charing Cross to Greenwich.Though the theory is that lady deliberately lied just to cop a feel of Thor.
I know I would.
He’s still got it.
Iron Man 2 is pretty bad compared to the rest of the MCU, that might be it, but it’s probably the Hulk
Chris Hemsworth is both the handsomest Chris…and the handsomest Hemsworth!Miley might call him…the best of both worlds!
“MCU-bad” is still, like, a B-.
I just watched it for the first time, and despite being a little “Lord of the Rings meets Flash Gordon-y,” I rather enjoyed it. And for all the shit Portman gets, she was much better in this one than the first one. Every scene with Loki was worth watching and every scene with Darcy was a goddamn delight.
And just to nerd out a moment… one thing I think gets missed in Thor 2 is the implication that Frigga is actually Loki’s birth mother. In the old Norse Laufey was a woman and is Loki’s mother. It’s established in Thor 1 that Loki is half Frost Giant and in Thor 2 Frigga shows she possesses much of the same magical ability that he does. It’s easy to conclude that Odin’s disdain for the Frost Giants even after the peace agreement in the 9 realms stems from Loki being the offspring of Laufey (now male in the MCU and comics) and Frigga.Edit: I was wrong about the original mythology regarding Odin being Loki’s father so I removed references to sexual violence.
I still maintain that Thor Dark World isn’t as bad as most people deem it to be. Had it kept the story in Asgard and developed Malekith better then it would’ve been very good.Iron Man 2 and most definitely Iron Man 3 are a lot worse.
Redeeming Loki by blaming it on an evil scepter is exactly the kind of silly bullshit everyone has been afraid Disney would do.
I think it’s how you approach the idea. If you say the scepter controlled him and made him act evil, I’d say that’s bullshit, and that it’s bad writing that does disservice to the character. But if you say that the scepter is kind of like the One Ring and uses the greed and jealousy that’s already in you, and influences you and brings it out, that I can accept.
“But if you say that the scepter is kind of like the One Ring and uses the greed and jealousy that’s already in you, and influences you and brings it out, that I can accept.”
It helps that they literally showed that this was true in Avengers.
That’s true. But I think it stops short of controlling. “He’s a good guy, it was just the scepter/Tesseract!” doesn’t fly, because from what we’ve seen Loki is not a “good guy” good guy, he’s an antihero at best, and a likeable villain otherwise. I think we’re in agreement here.
Right, I don’t mean to say that it was controlling him, just amplifying his mischief/chaos instincts, just like it wasn’t controlling the Avengers but amplifying their mistrust and baser qualities during the argument scene.
Bingo. Banner wasn’t secretly a villain all along, after all.
I just like the idea that Loki, being an immortal godlike alien, is existing on a different level of morality to humankind. To him, there’s not much difference between using an alien army to enslave a planet or pretending to be king so he can put on self-aggrandising plays. (We should also remember that he was willing to destroy an entire planet in the first ‘Thor’ without being anywhere near that sceptre.) I think even Thor himself would have less of a traditional moral stance if he hadn’t learned a thing or two from the humans he’s become friends with.
Hell, a more interesting “Thor” conflict than the second movie would have been built around the moral conflict between destroying Earth and saving Planet X, Planet Y, and Planet Z!
The Infinity stone in the sceptre exacerbated what was already in Loki. It didn’t just make him evil and they weren’t trying to handwave his personality away.Besides which, I imagine anyone who lives millenia longer than us would have a very different moral code to us, even before said influence.
“An ant has no quarrel with a boot.”
I starred you assuming you agreed with me.
Yes, that was my way of agreeing w/what you said. 😉
I don’t really understand why Thor: The Dark World gets as much hate as it does. IMO, the first Thor movie is just as bad, if not worse due to the tonal whiplash and awful performances. Dark World at least has all the awesome Loki stuff and manages to waste Natalie Portman slightly less.
I still don’t buy that Thanos killed him, regardless of all the bullshit people involved in the films have said. Loki has faked his death in the series time and time again. He worked with Thanos and was aware of his power, he’s been more involved with infinity gems than anyone but Thanos himself, and he knew exactly what Thanos was capable of.
So either 1) The people involved are lying and he faked dying again. Or 2) The writers of Infinity War are remarkably shitty writers.
Thanos literally says something to the effect of “No resurrections this time” and chokes the goddamn life out of him in disturbing detail. How on earth does that constitute bad writing if Loki is actually dead?? I swear, people have this deep need to feel like they’re a step ahead without realizing that the filmmakers know exactly how they’ll react.
It’s bad writing because why the actual fuck would Loki think that wouldn’t happen if he tried to shank Thanos?
Because he’s absolutely desperate. His brother has been captured and it’s the only gambit he has left. He gives Thanos the Tesseract just to get a window to shank him. Those stakes work.
It definitely seems truer to the character that he saw an opportunity to bait Thanos into helping him fake his death and escape (possibly on the Bifrost that Heimdall sent Hulk to Earth with) than that he made a clumsy assassination attempt and then let Thanos choke him—a shape-shifting trickster god and master of illusion—to death.
Loki has certainly never displayed overconfidence, no sir.
Maybe Loki, master schemer thay he was, realized the only sure way to escape the snap was to seem to be dead before it happened.
I’m slightly curious about how Thanos knows how often Loki has faked his death?While I begrudgingly accept that Loki is really dead, there is still something iffy about time he’s not onscreen before making his lame attempt at stabbing Thanos.
Thanos would definitely know. They’re in similar circles. Space ones.
“here’s the reality stone that I certainly did not use to do anything like make a duplicate of myself to die in my place or anything…being a god, I have certainly never seen The Prestige. Nope. You can trust me. “
Space stone. It doesn’t do that.
I assume Thanos read Loki’s CV before hiring him for the Battle of New York.
I am actually quite interested in the level of knowledge about certain things Thanos displays throughout the film. The “no more resurrections” line is one. He calls Spider-Man an insect, and even though spiders are arachnids, it seems like an oddly appropriate insult to someone who does not on the surface read as particularly bug themed. He turns Peter Quill’s gun into a bubble gun, which is funny and seems like something a human would know to do, but why would a Titan make that connection? And he seems to have a fair bit of understanding about who Tony is, while also telling him he knows what it’s like to be “burdened by knowledge”. I don’t know if it’s meant to be a side-effect of the stones or something else, but I feel like Thanos just knows more than he should and I’m really intrigued to see if they’re going somewhere with it.
Chokes him to death, like two scenes before we see Thor survive in space with no oxygen.
Less choked and more crushed his throat.
Okay. So he doesn’t get to eat or breathe…I imagine that after about 4 hours, Loki will be desperate for a sammich…but what would the other effects be?
What do we really know about Asgardian/Frost dude physiology and what it takes to kill one? I’m thinking this is on the level of “I suffocated Wolverine!”
Is it too much to hope that Lady Sif returns for Endgame? Maybe she and Valkyrie team up to help Thor? I miss her
Sif was snapped: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/avengers-infinity-war-directors-confirm-which-characters-died-off-screen_n_5af5f6fee4b032b10bfaa3a0
If Sif didn’t get one of those posters commemorating the fallen then I don’t accept that she is dead
Yeah until proven otherwise I’m with those saying that Lady Sif is still alive.Heck I’m still hoping for Enchantress to turn up.
Make her a regular in AOS you cowards!
I freaking love Sif’s guest appearances on SHIELD“The nine realms are littered with the bones of the enemies of Asgard who underestimated Sif!”
That’d be tough because she’d be Worfed constantly to show how tough the villain is.
Well it’s not like they haven’t been doing this with Daisy to some extent anyway. And even if she were to get her ass-kicked she would still be a nice prescence to have around (and frankly more welcome than some of the other characters at this point).
She has to get rid of all those tattoos first.
It’s in the lower tier of Marvel flicks, but it’s still not *awful*. Loki pretty much saves the movie for a good chunk of it, granted.The portal-flinging finale is still brilliantly imaginative and fun.
I agree with others though that this is not a great film by MCU standards, but I’d pop this one in the player way before most others outside of the MCUIn Avengers I always kind of read the whole staff thing like it was at least amplifying his worst tendencies, he’s definitely not okay in some of the parts when using the staffs power.
There was an entire scene showing that the scepter was amplifying the Avengers’ argument with each other, so it’s entirely justified if that’s the way they want to go with it.
Yeah, me saying it is at the bottom of my personal MCU ranking just means I like it the least of all the MCU movies. That doesn’t mean I hate it or think it’s a bad movie. I’ll pop this on and watch it before I re-watch Ready Player One any day of the week.
It’s MY favorite Marvel movie
Going with “the scepter turned him evil!” is a really odd take when we watched him attempt a genocide in the first Thor movie, but only after trying to kill his brother out of insane jealousy.
Dude has problems.
The thing about The Dark World is that it really didn’t have anything interesting to say about Thor post-Avengers. Compared to Iron Man 3 or Winter Soldier, it just kinda treated the events as another battle he fought in. Maybe that’s the case, but it still didn’t really bring anything about the character forward, other than he was more reasonable than Odin.Also it’s funny that a bunch of aliens launched a full-scale invasion of a London suburb and nobody in the MCU ever mentions it again.
They did in Agents of Shield!
……for one week. They still didn’t pick up that frost monster that’s roaming around Greenwich.You should see the traffic delays it causes.
In the dvd commentary, Hiddleston confesses that the scene in the cell where he’s tossing that doodad to himself was in fact what we thought it was — a hat tip to Steve McQueen and his baseball in The Great Escape.Also, they filmed a take of Hiddsy wearing the Captain America suit doing his very able Chris Evans impersonation, which is in the dvd extras.
The internet provides:
Okay, I liked the Evans cameo, but this would have worked just fine too.
But then we wouldn’t have gotten Evans’s great performance as Loki’s impression of Captain America.
that’s awesome
Damn, that’s some convincing Evans.
One thing that bugged me in the first Thor movie was the casual violence of the Realms. Thor and his friends go to Jotunheim to confront Laufey. It breaks down, and they just outright murder a lot of giants before Odin sweeps in and takes them home.We don’t get a sense of whether these blood feuds are as traumatic and self perpetuating as in human life. Maybe it’s different for Realm dwellers, but they don’t spell it out. And Hela’s revelations in Ragnarok certainly cast a different light on the Asgardians’ entitlement to drop in and kill without consequence.
I’m surprised not to find a clip but Dark World gave us Darcy and Thor’s master level small talk.“Look at you, still all muscley. How is space?”“Space is fine!”
There is a compilation video of all of Darcy’s lines in the film, but it loses something to not have the back-&-forth.
“How’s space?” is my second favourite Darcy line, after, of course, “Mew Mew!”
Bring back Darcy you cowards.
I’d completely forgotten about that scene (as I did much of the movie) when introducing my gf into the MCU and fucking died at Chris Evan’s cameo.
Yes, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a binary one where the good guys are good and the bad guys bad.Have you watched any of these movies?
Frigga’s funeral is a genuinely beautiful scene. It makes this movie worth it.
This movie’s biggest problem that no one talks about: it wastes the Reality Stone. Sure, that last fight through the realms is cool, but it should have been a lot cooler since it was caused by the stone that can alter the fabric of reality!!!! I didn’t even know that The Aether was the Reality Stone until years later. The other stones were used well. Hell, James Gunn had some with the Power Stone, and that one just blows people up. Those few parts where Thanos used the Reality Stone were WAY cooler than anything in this movie.
One of my favourite things about this movie – which I like more than most people seem to – is the feuding brothers back-and-forth between Thor and Loki. It’s sometimes aggressive, sometimes playful, and has some really funny moments. (I love Loki’s, “Ta-dah!”) It sets things up nicely for their relationship in ‘Ragnarok’, which ended up being quite emotive.
When dealing with time, space, and magic, anything that “definitely” happened can definitely UNHAPPEN. Also, who believes the Russos? So yeah: Loki lives.
Not just because he’s the best unexpectedly great villain of the
series. As much as I’m looking forward to the series, it’s tough to get
excited for any walking dead character.
Rewatched this one the other day. Not the best (they don’t give Natalie Portman much to do), but I love the bit where Thor casually hangs his hammer on Jane’s coat rack.
Still, The Dark World remains a by-the-numbers affair, driven down by a forgettable villain—Dark Elf Malekith is even lamer than the first ’s frosty Laufey
Laufey isn’t the villain of the first Thor movie. Loki is.